Anyone that's been reading the priest forums for a decent amount of time knows HolyLathusDisc is clueless, just ignore him.

As for 5.2, I feel we'll be fine. It'll be a mix of Spirit Shell, atonement, PW:S and PoH healing, instead of pure PoH.

I'm a bit worried about DA on PoH though, it started the expansion at 30% and was buffed to 50% because it wasn't good enough, now suddenly it's gone altogether. I'd rather see it moved to say 25% on PoH and 50% on crit heals. The guaranteed PoH is what makes the Disc PoH competitive with holy's, as holy gets +25% from chakra and then the HoT from their mastery. If we aren't proccing DAs then our PoH is just flat out worse.

Is that why I am ranking on WoL?

These forums are pathetic with bad players who think they are somebodys

These forums are pathetic with bad players who think they are somebodys

Calling other people bad when you're sitting at 3/16 HMs in 10 man isn't the best thing to do. Even if I agree with a few of your points. It makes you look silly to call others bad when you're not sitting at 16/16 HC.

Depends where do you get the 20-25% ahead of other healers part: if its from top wol parses, I'm not sure those are the best way to gauge class balance, and we all know how ranks can be "orchestrated".

After taking a look at wol, disc is away from the other healers with anything between 10-30% - depending on the fight and what class its compared to, 30% being usually compared to resto druids/holy priests. Aegis is about 20-25% of 25 man healing, and 90% of it comes from poh - so that's a 15-20% nerf . Spirit shell is 20-30%, not scaling with mastery anymore will be an @10% nerf. In total we are looking at a 25-30% nerf, which will put disc lower than resto druids are now - and they are getting buffed. You will say that we can cast PWS more, but disc is already constantly casting, any additional PWS will have to be cast at the expense of something else, so it wont be an increase, more a trade-off. We have spirit shell once a minute, whats the incentive to pre-shield for more than that?

I also personally dont feel attracted towards stacking crit in order to make my mastery work. It might look nice on the mters but its never been a healer great stat, not without some specc synergy to make it reliable. In order to use shields efficiently, they need to be timed, and you cant time a crit. Random shields=most likely useless shields.

Ofc none of this addresses holy issue - which lags behind around the same numbers resto druids pull generally, but they dont seem to be getting any buffs.

And most importantly, this is your personal opinion . For me, holy is a bland and boring specc. I played it in tbc, and played it half of wrath. I can play it and have myself amused with it while disc is getting fixed (always happens) but as soon as I have the choice, I'll prefer disc.

But I agree with you that holy does need some love. I just wish sometimes that holy priests would start argumenting in the form of "holy feels week because x,y,z and should be fixed" instead of "I dont want to play disc because its boring". You can actually deffend your own specc without throwing mud on others.

I completely disagree with this. The way I see it, its disc priests getting their spec down our throats. Just check the thread about whether holy is viable or not. There is a disc priest there telling us that a holy priest who isn't respeccing is an ass. This is what we have to deal with since MoP started (yeah, disc sucked too for a few weeks, but that didn't last long). If you read holy priest threads (aren't many of them this days, as its all disc disc disc), you will see that we barely mention disc. Instead, we mention the changes we would like to see with Chakra, our regen tools, our viability in PvE raiding and PvP, etc. Disc priests have laughed at us for so long, they have referred to us as Non-disc priests rather than holy. The disc priests community, imo, truly failed at helping its brother shine. Look at 5.1 - disc was OP, and yet most threads where about fixing disc for PvP, where holy is worse IN BOTH, and in some cases wasn't viable. Disc priests seemed to have forgotten that as a community, we share the same class, we should want all specs of it to be viable. This is why, as a holy priest, I'm quite sad that Blizzard is nerfing disc without giving it an additional healing spell for AoE, something they, imo, need badly.

At the end of the day I believe one should be able to choose the spec he enjoys more and be viable in it. He shouldn't need to be considered an ass for not respeccing to the other spec. However, you blaming holy priests for not defending our spec - sorry but that's just not true. Holy priests have been not only defending their spec, but also defending the class in general, something disc priests, the more arrogant ones, have failed to do.

PoH is more than strong enough without a guaranteed DA. It's easily a 100k hps throughput spell when the situation requires it (Elegon p3, Garalon, Tsulong night phase etc).

I'm guessing you don't main a priest (perhaps monk :P)

"Easily 100k HPS throughout" You're living in dream land. 5.2 changes as is will put a cast of PoH at ~71k HPS for me. And that is in close to full BiS (albeit not all fully upgraded ofc). Now factor in the limitations of the spell and imo it's starting to look rather weak.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those saying the sky is falling and regurgitating the same hyperbole that many are, but very high damage phases where it is raid wide are likely to be a problem if these changes make live as is. Not that I think they will.

Speaking from a 10 man PoV, there are some fights where I'd be getting carried based on that number.

All that said, even though I believe Blizzard are rather lost about how to deal with the class as a whole (so many issues with all 3 specs) and that they are struggling with 10 vs 25 balance, if you look closely and do some calculations with an open mind on playstyle changes, I think there is potential for Disc to still be rather competitive in 5.2.

Calling other people bad when you're sitting at 3/16 HMs in 10 man isn't the best thing to do. Even if I agree with a few of your points. It makes you look silly to call others bad when you're not sitting at 16/16 HC.

I completely disagree with this. The way I see it, its disc priests getting their spec down our throats. Just check the thread about whether holy is viable or not. There is a disc priest there telling us that a holy priest who isn't respeccing is an ass. This is what we have to deal with since MoP started (yeah, disc sucked too for a few weeks, but that didn't last long). If you read holy priest threads (aren't many of them this days, as its all disc disc disc), you will see that we barely mention disc. Instead, we mention the changes we would like to see with Chakra, our regen tools, our viability in PvE raiding and PvP, etc. Disc priests have laughed at us for so long, they have referred to us as Non-disc priests rather than holy. The disc priests community, imo, truly failed at helping its brother shine. Look at 5.1 - disc was OP, and yet most threads where about fixing disc for PvP, where holy is worse IN BOTH, and in some cases wasn't viable. Disc priests seemed to have forgotten that as a community, we share the same class, we should want all specs of it to be viable. This is why, as a holy priest, I'm quite sad that Blizzard is nerfing disc without giving it an additional healing spell for AoE, something they, imo, need badly.

At the end of the day I believe one should be able to choose the spec he enjoys more and be viable in it. He shouldn't need to be considered an ass for not respeccing to the other spec. However, you blaming holy priests for not defending our spec - sorry but that's just not true. Holy priests have been not only defending their spec, but also defending the class in general, something disc priests, the more arrogant ones, have failed to do.

You might have noticed the quote I had replied to, the one calling disc boring, which is what my reply was aimed at. I've heard this "holy is the fun and complex specc, disc is the braindead boring one" since wrath times, generally from holy priests. I dont know what disc priest told you that you are an ass for not respeccing, but he doesn't represent the disc community. I have never been asked to spec something I didn't want, and in turn, I didn't ask it from anybody. You take things personally, as if its disc priests fault that holy is where it is: we dont make the game. I defended holy plenty in the past, I also play holy sometimes, even if its not my preferred specc. We failed at defending you? Look in this thread, at the holy priests saying they are fine. I dont think they are fine, personally, but hey, you cant defend somebody that tells you flat you are an idiot for thinking they need defending.

And btw, asking holy priests to not toss their personal opinions "disc is boring" as a demonstrated fact doesn't mean I ask them to defend disc. I can make my points just fine on a game, without going into un-necessary violin mode. Why would I ask somebody to defend a specc that they feel so strongly it ruins their life? It's illogical.

Lets not continue the conversation with personal disagreements, it's not needed or useful for anybody. I usually tend to skip the over-emotional posts.

"Easily 100k HPS throughout" You're living in dream land. 5.2 changes as is will put a cast of PoH at ~71k HPS for me. And that is in close to full BiS (albeit not all fully upgraded ofc). Now factor in the limitations of the spell and imo it's starting to look rather weak.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those saying the sky is falling and regurgitating the same hyperbole that many are, but very high damage phases where it is raid wide are likely to be a problem if these changes make live as is. Not that I think they will.

Speaking from a 10 man PoV, there are some fights where I'd be getting carried based on that number.

All that said, even though I believe Blizzard are rather lost about how to deal with the class as a whole (so many issues with all 3 specs) and that they are struggling with 10 vs 25 balance, if you look closely and do some calculations with an open mind on playstyle changes, I think there is potential for Disc to still be rather competitive in 5.2.

While I understand people's concern about the 100% DA removal...

It doesn't mean you won't be able to keep up at all. You will still have a decent spirit shell.

On top of that, if you are concerned about being able to keep up during an aoe phase. Then save inner focus and archangel for it instead of blowing it during a spirit shell. That's more then enough to boost your healing.[COLOR="red"]

Not to mention you still have your tier 90 talents. Cascade specifically

"Easily 100k HPS throughout" You're living in dream land. 5.2 changes as is will put a cast of PoH at ~71k HPS for me. And that is in close to full BiS (albeit not all fully upgraded ofc). Now factor in the limitations of the spell and imo it's starting to look rather weak.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those saying the sky is falling and regurgitating the same hyperbole that many are, but very high damage phases where it is raid wide are likely to be a problem if these changes make live as is. Not that I think they will.

Speaking from a 10 man PoV, there are some fights where I'd be getting carried based on that number.

All that said, even though I believe Blizzard are rather lost about how to deal with the class as a whole (so many issues with all 3 specs) and that they are struggling with 10 vs 25 balance, if you look closely and do some calculations with an open mind on playstyle changes, I think there is potential for Disc to still be rather competitive in 5.2.

I don't main a Priest no, but from the cast times (2.2 sec raid buffed with bis gear?) it looks like it could easily achieve 100k hps. Each hit from PoH on our Disc Priests seem to range from 40-45k, thus equaling around 100k~ hps. Perhaps I am living in a dream world, but I think GC is correct when he believes Disc should suffer smaller throughput as a result of having absorption effects. Perhaps it's poor for 10 man (I play 25 man) but I think any setup can work in 10 man. During Christmas I 2 healed all the 10 man HMs with a double MW setup, so I strongly believe anything is possible in 10 man (although having OP classes naturally help).

I'm going to bit blunt here so forgive me if I ruffle a few feathers: so far the only person who's even seen Disc tested with the 5.2 changes in a raid was me. We have logs. I can easily copy them here.

I am interested in seeing these, if you can give us links.

To the others the past few pages: Please stop arguing. Insults are against forum rules and so is calling "troll". There's absolutely no reason that things can't be debated without insults.

Each hit from PoH on our Disc Priests seem to range from 40-45k, thus equaling around 100k~ hps.

Those numbers seem to be raidbuffed and with archangel up. My own PoH, selfbuffed only with IF is 31k, and I'm 500ilev. Also take into consideration PoH has to work fairly for all situations, not only stacked raids where all 5 targets take the full healing because the dmg is raidwide. PoH has never been balanced around hitting 5 targets, more like 4. It has unavoidable overhealing, like any non-smart spell.
Also, 100k potential aoe hps isn't that impressive, all classes can do more than that in optimal circumstances. However, spells arent balanced around optimal circumstances. Sometimes not all your party is in range of poh - and its quite impossible to know that. Its not only a case of needing healing and being around like for any smart spell. In a 25 man, the chance of ppl in the same party to not be in a 30 yards perimeter is significant.

Taking your own numbers, atm your disc priest PoH hits 40-45k per person, and also applies a more than 50% of that as a shield (depending on mastery). Considering your own calculation on poh potential, we should easily be doing 150k+ hps, even with 0 mastery on gear. However, you wont see that kind of hps apart from few top parses on garalon hc: massive raidwide dmg and I can guarantee you those top ranks had their parties very well arranged for those numbers, also, a large chunk of that hps comes from spirit shell, not just poh spam.

Keep in mid the change to pw:s is going to make up for a portion of that.

Why, is PWS shield getting buffed and I didn't hear about it? Do you think that a 25% mana decrease also balanced by rapture being nerfed is gonna make the spell spammable? Its 75k mana for shielding 5 ppl, over about 5 seconds needed to actually cast PWS 5 times, so no, PWS wont make up for PoH DA, which is free and applied in a poh cast time that takes @2.2 seconds for 5 ppl.

Not to mention the moronic mechanic of aoe healing via single target shields that last 15 seconds. I thought we decided in wrath that shit is wrong. Whats coming next? LK hc 2.0 to prove the whole thing amazing?

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can get multiple rapture procs at the same time again yes?

If this is still the case, then you will still be seeing pretty high rapture returns if its available for a big boss aoe.

You are wrong. Multiple procs have been fixed starting cataclysm, some ppl reported some multiple procs after the last rapture change, followed by reports of rapture not proccing at all, but it was fixed already for ages.

The re introduction to haste being a primary stat for disc come the changes in 5.2.

It will close the gap on the needs to absorbs by bringing higher HPS with raw healing.

Wat. Haste becomes a primary stat, and for disc priests especially? Really? Why dude, whats it doing for us and not doing for everybody else? Is it gonna be exclusively on disc priests gear next to intellect and spirit or how does that reasoning goes?

You absolutely can know when a poh will be. Most effective hitting all 5 targets.

So much of that is ensuring your raid is positioned properly so that things like that don't happen. Most raids will for the most part even in 25 man have one person in each group that can act as a central casting point for your poh.

I don't use this addon, but grid has a poh prediction addon that tells you which target you can cast on so poh hits all 5 targets.

Why, is PWS shield getting buffed and I didn't hear about it? Do you think that a 25% mana decrease also balanced by rapture being nerfed is gonna make the spell spammable? Its 75k mana for shielding 5 ppl, over about 5 seconds needed to actually cast PWS 5 times, so no, PWS wont make up for PoH DA, which is free and applied in a poh cast time that takes @2.2 seconds for 5 ppl.

Not to mention the moronic mechanic of aoe healing via single target shields that last 15 seconds. I thought we decided in wrath that shit is wrong. Whats coming next? LK hc 2.0 to prove the whole thing amazing?

You are wrong. Multiple procs have been fixed starting cataclysm, some ppl reported some multiple procs after the last rapture change, followed by reports of rapture not proccing at all, but it was fixed already for ages.

I thought it was, I thought I read earlier in mop it was happening again. But never noticed it myself but I never really cast it more then one target unless someone was on the bring of death.

As for the shields, I don't think it will be spam able at all,

What I was trying to say is its a better way of balancing out the class abilities without just nerfing something to utter hell.

While they needed DA, they didn't remove it. Instead balanced the need by slightly buffing shield mana cost. Meaning the healing you lose from the da need can be made up by pre shielding 4-5 people.

With 28k spell power without any
Procs. In a raid setting my shields are just about 100k per shield. So 5 of these will be close to if you had 2 stacks of DA up on the raid. Of course speaking of a 10 man setting.

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 03:56 PM ----------

Auto correct rapes me on these forums >_<. Need = nerf

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 04:02 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Saphiramoon

Why, is PWS shield getting buffed and I didn't hear about it? Do you think that a 25% mana decrease also balanced by rapture being nerfed is gonna make the spell spammable? Its 75k mana for shielding 5 ppl, over about 5 seconds needed to actually cast PWS 5 times, so no, PWS wont make up for PoH DA, which is free and applied in a poh cast time that takes @2.2 seconds for 5 ppl.

Not to mention the moronic mechanic of aoe healing via single target shields that last 15 seconds. I thought we decided in wrath that shit is wrong. Whats coming next? LK hc 2.0 to prove the whole thing amazing?

You are wrong. Multiple procs have been fixed starting cataclysm, some ppl reported some multiple procs after the last rapture change, followed by reports of rapture not proccing at all, but it was fixed already for ages.

Wat. Haste becomes a primary stat, and for disc priests especially? Really? Why dude, whats it doing for us and not doing for everybody else? Is it gonna be exclusively on disc priests gear next to intellect and spirit or how does that reasoning goes?

I wasn't saying priest will have to stack haste. I'm saying the value on mastery drops significantly due to spirit shell not being benefited by mastery, as well as DA beig far less pre levant in raids.

Haste will gain value because it will affect more spells then mastery will come 5.2.

Blizzard is moving towards disc being less about doing more absorbs then healing, to being about half and half.

Which if people want disc to do more raw HPS, haste is where those numbers will come from.

It doesn't mean you won't be able to keep up at all. You will still have a decent spirit shell.

On top of that, if you are concerned about being able to keep up during an aoe phase. Then save inner focus and archangel for it instead of blowing it during a spirit shell. That's more then enough to boost your healing.[COLOR="red"]

Not to mention you still have your tier 90 talents. Cascade specifically

Whilst I don't wish to appear rude, your comments are rather naive.

Personally I prefer playing holy, and did so for all of MSV HC. Once you get into HoF & ToeS heroics, holy starts to struggle, and substantially so on a number of 10 man encounters. So yeah, I'm currently playing Disc almost exclusively.

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Now imo, the topic being discussed here is only really related to initial progression since farm is largely irrelevant.

During progress things like Max HPS matters. It might be DPS struggling with a tight enrage and the fight being at the limits of what is possible due to a soft enrage mechanic or any number of other issues that have to be considered when pushing progress hard and you're 'undergeared'.

To give you an idea, one fight where our DPS struggled on a first kill was Protectors HC (in part due to a poor stacking tactic-which we still use...) This fight has rapidly increasing raid wide damage that acts as a soft enrage. Of course with current gear, the fight is almost a snooze, but ~7/8 weeks ago (ish, I think) I can assure you it was far from that. Checking the earliest log I can find (seems the first few kills aren't there) during the last 1 minute 20/30 seconds or so, I sustained an average of over 150k HPS with peaks over 225k. Damage taken by the raid towards the end is the real issue when the raid can suffer in excess of 750k DTPS total.

Yeah, I guess I could up my 70k HPS Prayer with AA, and raid cooldowns would help reduce incoming damage too, but hopefully this gives you an idea just how difficult healing this encounter would have been with no DA on Prayer. (ofc I'm being a little unfair as DA still exists in 5.2 so in reality an average PoH would always have 1 crit)

-------

To Manamontana:

I don't disagree about the throughput comment.

My PoH cast is 2.29 seconds and without AA or grace, in 5.2 the heal would be 37.6k based on current gear. Not far off your numbers, and easily explained by a few pieces of gear and gemming choices I expect; flask choice too (my number is based on using falling leaves not warm sun). No doubt in 25 man your discs can afford to drop rather more spirit than the average 10 man progress raider- MTT being a significant contributor in that regard.

I expect when you healed all 10 man HM's with 2 monks, they were also mains which had already cleared the content on 25 and as such I regard this as largely irrelevant. You know the encounter, your raid is likely not making the same mistakes that often occur on a progress attempt and you have gear from the fights already.
To say "anything is possible in 10 man" is so far from the truth-do remember I'm talking from a progress standpoint here. Synergy between healers dictates that you do not (ever that I can recall) stack all of 1 class/spec, even when 1 of those is regarded as totally OP, as Disc in 25 man is right now.
Perhaps there are logs of 8 Discs healing Empress 25 HC on progress, I'm not aware of any though.

Edit: Rambled so much I forgot the point of my post, I'm slightly (this is all subject to change and I strongly expect there will be further iterations pre 5.2) concerned about Disc' ability to AoE heal. T6 talents have too long a CD to be considered 'rotational' in a max HPS situation. That leaves ProM, PoH, Penance (can see me wanting to hold on T14 4 Set as long as possible) ....oh and perhaps the new Binding Heal glyph, though I expect to use that as holy primarily (if at all)

I don't know your trinkets, but are you taking into account things like jade spirit, trinket procs with intellect boost? All which scale higher with inner fire no less.

http://oi49.tinypic.com/2rqd9ad.jpg
There you go, 31.8k without wep proc, 33k with weapon proc. You can see my ilev/intellect too. I dont have intellect procs trinkets, I dont especially like uncontrolled bursts of intellect that I might need in that particular moment or I might not. I prefer spirit procs trinkets, because I can always use the regen. Which, btw, works a bit different from 10 man to 25 man, as one of my new disc priest recruits recently told me (hes coming from a 10 man and said he needs to adjust to 25 man consumption because he went oom midfight).

As for group positioning - no bloody dps will care much about your poh in most fights. If the boss allows fair stacking, GG. If not, you can dream on about ppl arranging themselves according to groups. You can tell your rl to put melees in a group and ranged in another, but that's about it. And the addons dont tell you when 5 ppl are in range of some spell, they tell you when a spell is gonna heal over a set value. For all you know, it could be calculated on 2 ppl.

So 5 of these will be close to if you had 2 stacks of DA up on the raid. Of course speaking of a 10 man setting.

PoH: 13.5 k mana
5xPWS: 75k mana, considering one procs rapture, its still 60k mana. It's also about 5 seconds needed to cast them. I dunno what you do in your raids, but I dont have free time when I dont cast.
Also take into consideration: 10 man: 5xpws covers half of your raid. 25 man: it covers 20% of your raid.

Look, I'm not complaining about numbers. I was one of the ppl that considered the PoH buffs that we kept getting a poor fix to cover specc mechanic issues, and I always considered the 50% aegis a stupid un-needed buff that whoever came up with must have been drunk. I'm saying that ludicrous aegis has been driving disc into poh spam for ages (or aegis, if you want a bad pun).

I am however questioning the ppl saying : "stack crit and you're back on track". Shields need to be predictable and controllable to be useful. I'm repeating myself, but you cant control a crit. It looks good on meters, but its a bad healer stat, and its always been that. You cant tell your group "ops, sorry guys, I didn't crit. But hey, look, I'm awesome hps on the meter because I crit when you didn't really needed and I made the other healers overheal." We're not dps.